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Science rears its ugly head on ice

Rob Hughes

February 9 1998, 12:00am, The Times

THE Winter Olympic Games are becoming an eerie contest, beyond the natural capability of man or woman. Yesterday morning, we traipsed up the mountain, and then down again, frustrated when heavy snow and mist caused the postponement of the Blue Riband event, the men’s downhill, until Wednesday. That, we must accept; the capriciousness of the weather is not in our gift to control.

But down below, indoors, the afternoon took a strange and unnerving turn. The Dutch speed skaters had predicted that revolutionary new equipment would give them a third-of-a-second advantage a lap in the 5,000 metres. And so it proved. A gold medal was claimed by Gianni Romme in a world record of 6min 22.2sec, six seconds - or a third of a second a…